Anyone know origin of Nottingham yeast?

[seymour]

I know it's the ubiquitous dry yeast sold by Lallemand/Danstar, but I mean, was it originally the house-strain of a historical English brewery? Is it a laboratory adaptation of an earlier well-known strain?

Now that it's used to ferment nearly every style of English ale, it's odd we don't know more about its origin.

Thoughts? Suspicions? Rebuttals?

[Befuddler]

I've heard a rumour that it was from the Bass brewery originally, but I honestly can't remember where I heard that. The Danstar literature suggests that it was isolated from a multi-strain culture, so it's not going to be an accurate representation of the Bass yeast, even if that was its origin.

[seymour]

Bump. Anyone else have any info on a historical origin of Danstar's Nottingham or, while we're at it, Windsor yeast strains?
c.f.: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=53094

[Graham]

Bump. Anyone else have any info on a historical origin of Danstar's Nottingham or, while we're at it, Windsor yeast strains?

Windsor is an intriguing one. Excluding recent micro start-ups, there has not been a commercial brewery in Windsor UK since 1935, so it is unlikely that Danstar got their yeast from a genuine Windsor UK source. That leaves us with Windsor Ontario. Danstar is a Canadian company, perhaps they were located in Windsor Ontario before Lallemand got them, and they simply named the yeast after their home town. Alternatively perhaps they sourced the yeast from an Ontario brewer.

[seymour]

Great background info, as always. Thanks for talking the time, Graham!

[Graham]

I suppose that good candidates for Nottingham yeast would be Shipstone's; Hardy & Hanson; Home Brewery; and Mansfield Brewery.

Although all the breweries are in Nottinghamshire, they all used the Yorkshire Stone Square fermentation system and all used a Yorkshire-type yeast. The yeast from all four breweries would have been very similar if not the same. They have all closed in recent years. As it happens, when the Black Sheep Brewery set up in 1992, their yeast strain came from Hardy & Hanson, as did their original stone squares.

However, I am sure that these yeast are multi-strain, and are maintained by the breweries as multi-strain for good reasons. However, multi-strains do not propagate well, that is propagate equally, and not all the component strains of a multi-strain will survive the freeze-drying process. Most commercially propagated yeast are a single-strain isolate and therefore they will not behave or perform like the original yeast. This applies to many of the liquid yeasts as well. Ringwood yeast, which is also a Yorkshire yeast, is a good example of that. I have compared so-called Ringwood liquid yeasts with the genuine stuff from the brewery, and there is little similarity between them.

Yorkshire yeast can be quite troublesome in home brewing, particularly American home brewing with their carboy fermenters, because Yorkshire yeasts are highly flocculant and semi-aerobic; they require frequent rousing with moderate aeration to maintain activity. If Nottingham yeast is as easy to use as Danstar claim, then it probably is not a true Nottingham strain.

On a more cynical note, it occurs to me that Boots the chemist (a large UK multiple pharmacy chain) has its headquarters and laboratories in Nottingham. Boots were very active in home brewing and all their shops carried a range of home brewing equipment and paraphernalia. Of course they supplied dried yeast. Now I cannot imagine Danstar in its early days sending a yeast scout out to Britain to kidnap some yeast from the obscure breweries mentioned above; breweries who's produce never made it very far outside of Nottingham, leave alone across the Atlantic.

Why would Danstar pick on Nottingham of all places?

I just wonder if Danstar simply bought a packet of Boots dried yeast in a Canadian home brew shop, or purchased their early yeast in bulk from Boots of Nottingham; hence the Nottingham moniker.

[Dr. Dextrin]

I must have used Boots brewing yeast many years ago as I certainly got most of my supplies there. Quite possibly it behaved something like Nottingham yeast does now (I can't really remember). However, I'm pretty sure it wasn't nearly as flocculent. Nottingham was the first yeast I used that really stuck to the bottom of the bottle. Before that, pouring was always a rather delicate matter.

[jonnyt]

Shipstones was referred to as Shipos but more commonly Shittos as that's the affect there Bitters had on ones constitution. I really hope it's nothing to do with that brewery!
I have however found an inner city pub in full view of the still standing Shipstones Brewery building that does over 10 cask ales and varies them all the time. I have a mate who lives nearby so try and visit every other week

Lovely Kipling on draft last week.

[smdjoachim]

Shipstones was referred to as Shipos but more commonly Shittos as that's the affect there Bitters had on ones constitution. I really hope it's nothing to do with that brewery!
I have however found an inner city pub in full view of the still standing Shipstones Brewery building that does over 10 cask ales and varies them all the time. I have a mate who lives nearby so try and visit every other week

Lovely Kipling on draft last week.

The Lion?

[jonnyt]

Correct

[Eyechub]

[quote="Graham"][quote="seymour"]Bump. Anyone else have any info on a historical origin of Danstar's Nottingham or, while we're at it, Windsor yeast strains?[/quote]
Windsor is an intriguing one. Excluding recent micro start-ups, there has not been a commercial brewery in Windsor UK since 1935, so it is unlikely that Danstar got their yeast from a genuine Windsor UK source. That leaves us with Windsor Ontario. Danstar is a Canadian company, perhaps they were located in Windsor Ontario before Lallemand got them, and they simply named the yeast after their home town. Alternatively perhaps they sourced the yeast from an Ontario brewer.[/quote]

I have an old book 1904, but must have been reprinted many times. It's has alsorts of household 'recipes '. There's a few beer recipes. One of which is Windsor ale. So I presumed it was a style, if not a local style.

[soupdragon]

I'm sure I read somewhere that whitbread was linked to it

Cheers. Tom

[eramik]

Some interesting information about the origin of Nottingham, Windsor and London. They come from the same source.
https://forum.norbrygg.no/threads/om-op ... ham.44090/


[QUOTE]Thanks for the feedback and yes Nottingham is a good option for lower temperature fermentations and lager style beers. The only thing to bear in mind is pitching rate, always should increase cell concentration when doing lower temp fermentations and adjusting for that more stressful environment.



I think and assume it just must be the genetic composition of the strain makes it very tolerant to temperature, some strains have very good temperature tolerance and others do not and it related to genetics. There is not a lot to share or reveal about the origins of the strain, which has been in the Lallemand culture collection for about 30 years. My understanding is that It was originally a multi strain culture given to Lallemand by a chain of chemists/pharmacy in the UK who ask the company to dry a yeast for insertion in to home brew kits. The culture had 4 strains in it and these were isolated in to single strain yeasts. One of these became Nottingham and two of the other strains were Windsor and London (which we also still produce commercially). There was no information about origin or brewery that the multi-strain culture came from. There are always lots of rumours and guesses about where strains come from but most of the time it is not that exciting, it is simply taken from a culture collection with little to no information about the ‘origin’.



Kind regards,



Robert Percival

Regional Sales Manager - Europe

Lallemand Brewing – #WeBrewWithYou[/QUOTE]

[McMullan]

Anyone really care? What does a definitive answer actually translate into decades later? Very little I suspect. Given the biological impact of the drying process too. Nor should we support yeast companies like Lallemand, who profiteer from standardization. As home brewers we’d do ourselves a great injustice not supporting yeast companies who celebrate (and preserve) yeast diversity.

[clarets7]

Anyone really care?

Yes, thank you eramik, always interesting to know where commercial yeasts came from.

I came across this thread while searching for posts on Windsor, because it occurred to me that I've never tried it. It's low attenuation and (alleged) poor flocculation has always put me off in the past. On at least a couple of posts it's been mentioned that Notts and Windsor go together very well, and one post surmised they might well have been isolated from a mixed strain which this seems to confirm.

Anybody any experience with using a Notts/Windsor combination? In a typical English style bitter, between 1036 - 1040 OG?